Members of Congress left Washington, D.C., on Feb. 15 for a 10-day vacation break, but U.S. Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) hasn’t been sitting at home this week.

On Tuesday, Feb. 19, Mulvaney spoke to about 200 constituents in a town hall-style meeting at York Technical College in Rock Hill, answering questions ranging from proposed gun control bills to the “fiscal cliff.”

Then on Wednesday, the second-term congressman from Indian Land spoke to a group of students at Buford Middle School.

S.C. Sen. Greg Gregory (R-16) and two other legislators have filed a bill that will require South Carolina to comply with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) database for background checks for the mentally ill with gun purchases. See Friday edition of The Lancaster News for the full story.

A storied piece of Lancaster County’s history is missing at the Wofford College archives.

The George Washington half dollar is a silver Spanish piece of eight (Spanish real) said to have been used by the first president to pay for breakfast at the historic Nathan Barr’s Tavern on the morning of May 27, 1791.

The coin has been in the care of the Wofford archives since the early 1900s.

The results of a recent underage alcohol sting had Lancaster Police Chief Harlean Howard singing the praises of several local businesses.

In a press release sent Monday afternoon, Howard lauded 15 Lancaster businesses for refusing to sell alcohol to an underage operative. The initiative, conducted Saturday, Feb. 16, was a joint operation between the Lancaster Police Department and the S.C. Law Enforcement Division.

PAGELAND – A Chesterfield County man remains jailed without bond after allegedly shooting two people outside the Chesterfield County Courthouse on Feb. 13 and leading police on a chase.

Curtis Brent Gorney, 54, of Cheraw, is believed to have pulled up outside the courthouse on Chesterfield’s Main Street at 12:20 p.m. that day and opening fire on 21-year-old Olivia Weaver and her stepfather, Donnie Nolan. Gorney then fled the area west on S.C. 9 with sheriff’s deputies in pursuit.